Thursday, June 3, 2010

Wonder EGG....


Yes, my favorite food. I am an egg idiot and my family and friends all knew about it.

1) I love egg and consumed it fresh from the chicken "backside" when it is laid and still warm.

2) I love it hard boiled. The egg smells yummy when you peel off the shell. I like to do it when it is hot, burnt my fingers and felt the sting. However, people put hard boiled eggs straight away into ice water and when they peel the shell, the egg is perfect, white and inviting.

3) Poach egg in clear soup when the yolk is soft and yellowy. Yumm…m.m..m.m. This is a good way to eat an egg too. You have to make sure the water is boiling before you crack the egg into the pot or it will stick to the bottom. This needs a bit of skill or the egg white will not contain together and spread all over the soup.

4) Steam egg is good for lunch, dinner and supper. You crack as many eggs as you like, beat it up by adding some water and salt until the white and yolk blend together. The longer you beat the eggs, you will see the color turns from yellow to off white or light yellow.

I love steam egg with minced meat in it. It is a wonder dish to have on the table for both the young, old and aged because it is soft and nutritious, most people love it.

I also love steaming three types of eggs together….fresh eggs, salted eggs and century eggs. You beat up 3 fresh eggs, one salted egg and cut up the egg yolk into 3 sections and add 1 century egg by cutting it up. Mixed the 3 types of eggs together and steam it…hum.m.m.m… I am hungry!

Here is a medicinal formula from my Mum. Many tried it and it works wonder. If you are coughing badly or burping badly, take an egg, beat it, take a piece of ginger, crush it, squeeze the juice and add it into the beaten egg, add in rock sugar, depending how sweet you want it to be and steam the egg until it is custard in form. Eat it hot before you got to bed. NO food or water after eating the egg custard so that it have time to take effect in your stomach. Well, whether it works for you but it has no harm even if it did not cure your symptom instantly because Chinese also eat this before they sleep as a supper/ dessert to warm their lungs and keep their skin subtle.

5) Sunny side up is a breakfast dish? No, it is not…it is lunch and dinner and anytime when you are hungry and do not want a too heavy meal. I am very fussy over such egg. If it is badly fried with the yolk broken, I will scream and make a fuss.

We all know that International Buffet Breakfast serves sunny side up and so does American Breakfast. Add a dash of table salt and pepper on the egg and it brings out the fragrant of the egg white and yolk. You grow fat with the sausage, mash potatoes, tomato, bacon, and french toasts on the plate.

When we were young, Mum used to fry a sunny side up and put it on top of white steamed rice, add a dash of black soya sauce and light soya sauce and we were the happiest kids in the World. It is a meal and a healthy one too and saved Mum the trouble of cracking her head as to what is for lunch or dinner.

6) Egg Omelets come in different style. Westerners fried it in a pancake form and add ham bits, capsicum bits, tomato bits and cheese. Chinese fried it and break it up into pieces of different sizes. This is a good dish to have for both lunch and dinner. You can also add it into your morning breakfast breads and you have an egg sandwich, Chinese style. This dish can also go with plain congee. Eat it with light soya sauce and add green onion bits…you will love it.

I used to ask for egg white omelets for my breakfast when I travel. It is nice and healthy and taste good too BUT who is going to eat all the yolks? I never asked but probably it ended up in the pastry chef table and turned into cakes.

After talking so much about this wonder Egg, do you know how to tell…

a) A fresh egg from a stale egg? Crack it up and the pungent smell tells you that you have a bad egg. Another easy way is to take a cup of water, fill it to the brim and drop the egg gently into it. If the egg floats, you better throw it away…you can still eat it if you want and you can taste the stale smell and get food poisoning. However if it is fresh, the egg will sink to the bottom. If the egg sink to the bottom and bop a little, it is about a few weeks old.

b) How to preserve eggs. I know some people are health and cleanliness conscious but please do not wash your eggs before putting them into the fridge. There is a membrane that protects the egg and the shell is pores. Washing will damaged the life span of the eggs. Another thing you should know is to check the date of the eggs. Mostly no one will bother, they just buy but if the eggs has been around for a long time, it means you need to consume it sooner or it will stale. You can check on the side of the eggs holder, there should be a date indicated somewhere. However remember eggs are perishable items and you should not eat or buy cracked egg because of bacteria and you will surely have a ‘bad stomach’.

c) I used to see different colors eggs in the market and wonder what is the different….Do you know? White eggs are laid by white feathers chicken and brown eggs are laid by brown feathers chicken. There are also green shell eggs and blue shell eggs which are uncommon in Asia. The color of the shell is actually due to genetic and pigmentation. They are the same…an egg is an egg. I wonder whether I can stomach a ‘green’ or ‘blue’ egg?

d) Do you know how to tell a Hen from a Rooster? Well they tell us that males are vain and they want to attract, so for a Rooster you will tell it by the bigger comb on top of its head, the brighter color of the feathers and of course bigger in size. If you keep a chicken and if it did not lay an egg at all, it is definitely a Male!

e) Talking about that eggs are evil, well everything should be taken moderately. Eating an egg or two a few times a week won’t kill. Eggs contain protein and unsaturated fat…so what so evil about it? The body takes care of the cholesterol and produces lesser if there is intake to balance up.

So much for beloved EGG…and the evil myth!

1 comment:

  1. Yums! I love EGGS too, hard of half boiled, especially sunny side up! But at the moment I guess I can't take sunny side up or half boiled ones since it might be infected with bacteria (if it's half raw) ..

    ReplyDelete